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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Issue #28, 11/18/2006

The End of Rumination

By Glenn CampbellFamily Court Philosopher

If you were a cow, you could enjoy every meal twice! First,
you would eat it, then you would regurgitate it later at
your convenience and chew it some more. "Chewing her cud"
is an important part of a cow's natural digestive process.

This is also a useful metaphor for consciousness. You can
have a real experience in the outside world, but then when
things are quiet, you can regurgitate it again
in your mind and chew it over some more. It is
healthy to relive any new experience and think about all the
implications of it. This assures that you get the most
nutrition from each stimulating event.

When I go to a movie, for example, and the story
is fairly deep, I will think about the film for days or
weeks thereafter. I will re-chew it in my mind, considering
its nuances and how I would respond to the circumstances
portrayed. I might even think about how I would change the
movie if I were making it. It usually takes a month or two
before I am ready to see another.

This process of regurgitation and reprocessing—in both
cows and people—is called rumination, and it
is an opportunity that is sadly lacking in modern life for
both of our species.

Most of the cattle that we eventually eat are now force-fed
grain rather than being allowed to graze on natural grasses.
The bovines that become our Big Macs are crammed into muddy,
grassless feed lots where they are usually fed corn. There
is little roughage in their diet, so they rarely regurgitate
and chew their cud.

The goal of the feed lot operators is to pass as much
high-density food as possible through the animal to fatten
them up quickly. This destroys the natural ecology of their
digestive system and must be painful for them. The cattle
survive long enough for slaughter only because they are
given massive quantities of antibiotics and other medicines
to counter the effects of the intense diet.

In the modern world, we raise our children pretty much the
same way. They are overstimulated by a continuous stream of
high-density experiences to the point where they have no
time to think about what has happened to them. Television,
movies, video games, sports, music, internet activities and
even excessive reading can drive away any possibility of
rumination. Their brains are fattened up quickly, with lots
of synaptic connections formed at an early age, but it is a
shallow form of growth. There has to be something important
missing.

Something called conscience.

In the modern world, people are always moving, moving,
moving. They are rarely thinking about the practical and
philosophical implications of what they do. If they see a
distressing news story on television, they think, "Isn't
that sad," but a few minutes later that story is wiped from
consciousness by yet another multimedia experience... and
another, and another.

Modern media bring us a constant stream of intense emotions
that are force-fed into us one after another. Our processing
of these experiences is cursory at best. We react
emotionally to the immediate stimulus—by laughing or
gasping—but we never have a chance to integrate the
experience into our whole being.

It is like living through a war. Traumatic things
happen—buddies get killed and you kill
others—but you have to push the emotions aside for now
and continue with the battle. Unresolved issues become
stockpiled in the brain. Ideally, you should take some time
to deal with them, but in the modern world you will probably
never have the chance.

When you become attached to a character on TV and that
character dies, this is real trauma to you. When you go to
an intense science fiction movie where the hero fights to
save the universe and only barely succeeds, maybe you need
some therapy afterwards. At least you need to analyse privately
what the experience means in your own life. If you get even
partially caught up in the fantasy, then the emotions and
experience become real for you, and you shouldn't just brush
them aside and move instantly to the next set of
sensations.

The result of continuous emotional and sensory
overstimulation is a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Many intense things have happened to you, but you have never
had a chance to integrate them into your personality. As a
result, your brain is a mess. You may have a lot of
synaptic connections, but they are chaotic,
self-contradictory ones, not organized and unified.

Whenever the average person finds themselves alone with time
on their hands, they panic. "What do I do?" People call
this "boredom," but it is really the withdrawal symptoms from
the addiction of overstimulation.

Imagine going a whole day without television, radio,
internet, newspapers, books, music, alcohol or caffeine.
Can you do it? Can you go for even an hour without them?
What happens when you turn all these channels off? How do
you feel?

Anxious? If so, what is the source of that anxiety?

Aren't you afraid of being alone with your own thoughts?
You've stockpiled all sorts of traumas—both real and
virtual—and when you are alone, without distractions,
they threaten to come flooding back on you.

For most people raised by media, any genuine quiet time causes
distress. They have little experience ruminating on things,
so they don't have the discipline and "thinking skills" to
deal with whatever pops into their head.

Cut off temporarily from outside stimulation, they desperately
try to get it back. A television not turned on is like a
bottle of whiskey tempting an alcoholic. It is hard not to
open the bottle.

The effect on society of this widespread addiction is
massive passivity. A nation of stimulation addicts is a
nation of do-nothing sheep. People can get upset about
injustices during the few minutes they are displayed on
television, BUT THEY NEVER ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING ABOUT
THEM. Overstimulated people simply have no time for action,
and the quality of their lives tends to deteriorate as
routine mental maintenance stops getting done.

The same applies to families. When the television is always
turned on or the kids are always umbilically connected to
the Nintendo, there is no time for family life.
Parents have no real opportunity to raise their children and
teach them how to think.

This is why I favor carrying a sledgehammer at all times and
smashing the hell out of these media devices whenever you
encounter them. A big-screen high-definition stereophonic
home theatre system is not a temptation if you simply don't
have one or it is no longer operable due to vandalism.

Can you raise a child without television? Yes, you can.
It's been done before, but it is a lot easier to remove
the device altogether than to try to dole it out. Does a kid
need an X-Box for Christmas? No, he doesn't. The boy next
door already has one, which is more than enough stimulation
for the neighborhood.

Others may call you cruel and might even report you to the
child abuse hotline, but somebody has to draw the line on
overstimulation.

The photo at the top of this page was taken by the webmaster near
Hogshooter, Oklahoma, Aug. 14, 2006.

Reader Comments

“You were 1 mile north of the old town of Hogshooter. Had you gone south 1 mile you would have seen the old foundations of the town. I know as I have lived here in Hogshooter for 35 years.”
—Curt Johnson 6/10/07 (rating=3)

“Thank you for going public with your thoughts.”
—Learning 3/9/10 (rating=3)